peregrine falcon – The National Wildlife Federation Bloghttp://blog.nwf.org
The National Wildlife Federation's blogThu, 17 Aug 2017 19:08:14 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.86 Birds That Are Champion Flyershttp://blog.nwf.org/2015/01/6-birds-that-are-champion-flyers/
http://blog.nwf.org/2015/01/6-birds-that-are-champion-flyers/#respondSun, 11 Jan 2015 16:34:00 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=103087Today marks the anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s solo flight across the Pacific. It seemed only appropriate to compile a few birds with record flights and champion abilities. Like Amelia, these birds are nothing short of impressive. Which avians would you add to the list?

Fastest (Gravity Assisted) Flight: Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine falcons are the fastest dive-bombing birds. When they stoop to catch prey, they reach speeds of up to 200 miles (320 km) per hour!

This is a nesting adult peregrine falcon. The background is the Hudson River. The shot was taken from a cliff ledge about 525 feet above river level. Photo by National Wildlife Photo Contest entrant Herb Houghton.

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]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2015/01/6-birds-that-are-champion-flyers/feed/0Arctic Birds Suffering in A Changing Climatehttp://blog.nwf.org/2014/01/arctic-birds-suffering-in-a-changing-climate/
http://blog.nwf.org/2014/01/arctic-birds-suffering-in-a-changing-climate/#respondTue, 28 Jan 2014 01:23:12 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=91020North in the Arctic, there is a mystery unfolding. Populations of birds have entered into a sharp and rapid decline, leaving scientists scrambling to understand just what is happening. As Ed Struzik for Yale’s Environment 360 reports, both the birds and the species they prey on are suffering.

American kestrel photo taken by Barbara Fleming, from the National Wildlife Photo Contest.

“There’s no doubt that something is happening,” says Dave Mossop, a biologist at Yukon College who has been studying birds in the Yukon for more than 40 years. “Kestrels here are declining so fast, it’s scary. As many as 60 percent of the adult peregrines we have in the Yukon haven’t even bothered nesting in recent years. Our gyrfalcons are breeding much later, seem to be producing fewer young, and are declining in abundance.”

There is one likely culprit, climate change. Surviving in a harsh landscape like the Arctic requires a careful strategy, one that can be thrown wildly out of alignment by shifts in temperature.

In the case of the Arctic, warmer temperatures can mean more mosquitoes harassing some species, or longer rain seasons that have literally drowned some peregrine chicks in their nests.

NWF’s senior scientist Doug Inkley voiced his concern as well. “This report of widespread bird declines in areas where climate change is at its most extreme doesn’t bode well for the future of these birds adapted to Arctic ecosystems.” As our own report on migratory birds found, it is a crisis birds across the nation are facing.

If we can ever hope to reverse this decline, and to help preserve the homes of these birds in places like the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, we need to take action now. As the tendrils of climate change reach even the most remote natural areas on the planet, we need to redouble our efforts to move away from carbon fuels and cut our emissions.

It’s not in the Guinness book but on Oct. 11, 2008 volunteers and scientists from Hawkwatch International set a world record for logging the most peregrine falcons ever seen in a single day, 638.

The count took place during the 10th-annual raptor migration count at Curry Hammock State Park on Little Crawl Key in the Florida Keys; the last year before funding disappeared; five years short of having data that provides reasonably precise estimates of population trends, according to researchers.

Raptors that migrate through the Keys come from as far away as New England, Canada and the Midwest. Eight species are counted (others are “noted”): osprey, northern harrier, sharp-shinned hawk, Cooper’s hawk, broad-winged hawk, American kestrel, merlin and peregrine falcon.
To discover changes in population trends will require at least 10-15 consecutive years of data, according to Ernesto Ruelas, postdoctoral fellow and Raptor Population Index project manager for the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA). Hence the disappointment at losing 2009 and the excitement over HMANA restarting the count for 2010.

“The importance of the Curry Hammock site, and the Florida Keys in general, is it’s the last point on the Atlantic seaboard where you can track the migration before the birds head off to Cuba, the Yucatan Peninsula, the West Indies and Central and South America,” said Ruelas.

Though no oil flowed onto the shores of the Florida Keys and South Florida — an estimated 206 million gallons of oil were pushed into the Gulf of Mexico — trend analyses of raptor migration will become especially important.

“In 2004 and 2005 we started to consolidate the data and develop tools for analysis,” said Ruelas. “Right now we can use long-term data to figure out how populations are doing, but to find the causes why populations are going up or down requires further research. In many cases we can connect the dots with other sites and data sets to understand population trends.”

The connect-the-dots approach will include postulating about food sources, especially those impacted by the spill. Ospreys, of course, feed on fish. Merlins, small falcons sometimes called pigeon hawks, will attack shore birds like sandpipers. Migrating raptors feed on birds or small mammals, supplementing their diets with reptiles and frogs, which populate coastal wetlands and offshore islands.

If over the next five or so years, migration counts continue and show a marked decrease, one might conclude the oil spill has claimed victims from hundreds, even thousands of miles distant.